Title: The Devil's Plaything, Chapter 17 - Cool Hands, Cruel Heart
Series: Bleach
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, het (IchiHime, lots of other pairings eventually), blood, guts, testosterone, ANGST, the usual
Spoilers: This is AU. We don't need spoilers, where we're going.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to a lot of Japanese people, namely people like Tite Kubo and Shonen Jump. You'll notice how none of those are me. This will probably (never) be updated weekly, until I eventually drop it like every other project ever. Not responsible for epileptic seizures or allergic reactions. May contain eye-and-brain-bleeding levels of radioactive ANGST and/or peanut products. Please sit a reasonable distance from your computer screen.

Author's Notes: Sorry for the long absence, guys. I can't guarantee regular updates for any of my fics, but rest assured that I haven't forgotten them! The next few chapters here should hopefully answer some major questions, though!

Thank you all for the reviews, favorites, and follows in the meantime! I love reading your guesses and questions and I'm grateful for those of you who've stuck with this fic this whole time. Now, let's get going!


The light was blinding, brilliant white. Even through the shine of a thousand suns, Ichigo could tell that she was smiling at him. It was a familiar, comforting smile, something he hadn't seen in years now. All the same, he would know that feeling anywhere.

"Never forget," her voice floated to him through the thick haze of sleep. "I'll always be with you, Ichigo."

Ichigo wanted to call back and beg her to stay. He was vaguely aware that he was in a dream, but that didn't change the fact that he wanted her to come back home. Not just for himself, but for his sisters and even his good-for-nothing father. His mother had been the light of their lives, and when she died, it was like they were all suddenly stumbling in darkness. But try as he might, Ichigo could not remember what had happened that rainy July day, seven years ago. Not right now.

A feather-light touch grazed his up-turned face for a moment before vanishing again completely. Before he could say or do anything, though, his whole world went black again.

Ichigo awoke with a gasp, sitting up in the makeshift cot that Shinji and his group had provided for him. He was sweating and breathing heavily, clutching his head in one hand. He'd dreamed of his mother, he was sure of it. He hadn't heard her voice in seven years, but it was still just like a bell in his mind. He'd recognize it anywhere.

But why? As odd as it seemed, Ichigo felt as though she was... watching over him. He knew he shouldn't have survived that cannon blast from Urahara; it seemed impossible, but maybe his mother had protected him somehow. If he told anyone else this feeling, though, surely they'd laugh at him.

Ichigo shook it off physically, trying to clear his head and slinging droplets of sweat away as he did so. He was imagining things - had to be. That fight with his copy had messed him up in several ways, mostly emotionally; maybe this was just another symptom of it? This seemed different, though.

It wasn't like the other effects of that battle. Ever since they'd fought three days ago, he'd been training, trying to draw out that power on command like Shinji and the others. And he was getting better at it, for sure. But it was a different feeling, hot to the point of sweating and grinding and angry. It was almost as if he'd simply managed to absorb his other self, taking all those negative things inside himself - or perhaps inside himself again. If he understood the thing correctly, it was less of an evil twin and more of his id; all the things he wanted at a base level, brought to life and screaming at him. It had been inside him all along. It had been him all along. Perhaps even longer than he knew.

But this was different. This was his mother, warm and beautiful and comforting, as though he was still nine years old and had just fallen off of his bike and skinned his knee. Why was he remembering her again all of a sudden? What did she have to do with this? Was this guilt for what happened to her?

Either way, Ichigo lay on his back for a few more minutes, soaking up her presence before rubbing his eyes clear of sleep and beginning to sit up. It was going to be another long day with the Fallen.


Ever since Uryuu had crossed the threshold of the Kurotsuchi house, he had the distinct feeling that it had been a mistake. A grave one, too, because he just couldn't shake the feeling that something was desperately wrong about the place.

It wasn't so much that he could sense demons here. On the contrary, there was an abnormal lack of demonic presence here, as though the normal background presence that Uryuu had grown accustomed to had been filtered out. It was an eerie feeling, and not the one of purity that he would have expected. Instead, the air felt stale, as though it had not circulated in a very long time. Yet it was still crisp and cool, even as the spring nights had begun to warm.

Was this dimly lit house playing tricks on him?

At any rate, Nemu's hand was cool and gentle as she pulled him along the hallways of her otherwise average house. She seemed to be leading him to a room at the far end of a hall that poured flickering green light and the sounds of welding onto the floor outside.

"Nemu-san, where are you taking me?" He hadn't meant to sound so unsure, but Uryuu almost heard his voice coming from somewhere else. Nemu's expression did not change, nor her momentum. She kept looking straight ahead, just like a doll. She only slowed her pace a bit as they approached the end of the dark hall.

"As I said, to meet my father," she murmured, barely flicking her green eyes back in his direction. Part of Uryuu's brain was screaming danger at him while the logical part fought against it. There was no way Nemu could be leading him into a trap, and yet...

He knew this was a weakness of his, and he cursed it. Uryuu was not a friendly person by nature. He could count the number of friends he had at school on one hand. If anything, he saw most of his classmates as faces in a crowd that he may one day be tasked with protecting. He had neither the inclination nor the need to get very close with any of them. That would only get in the way of protecting them.

Nemu was different, though. Even as quiet as she was, she was an almost constant presence in Uryuu's school life. They took the same classes and usually ate lunch together nearly in silence. They worked on homework together (at her insistence), although until now, he'd never known where she lived. Perhaps she was hesitant to show him before, but for whatever reason, she had decided to bring him inside.

It would be a lie to say she meant as little to him on a personal level as their classmates. In fact, Uryuu realized she was probably his best friend, or perhaps more. He had grown used to her intrusion, and had actually even come to look forward to it. Maybe that was what having a friend was like.

As they finally came upon the doorway, Uryuu peered inside. His eyes widened in shock at the sight before him; a man with a white painted face, like a demented clown, bent over at a workbench, welding on some incomprehensible piece of electronics. The green glow, as it turned out, was from a row of fluid-filled canisters lining the walls, each large enough to hold a man. As he turned to face them, the twisted man's steady look of concentration turned to one of irritation.

"What the devil is this?" he growled, pushing a pair of welding goggles up away from his eyes. "Your instructions were to bring me Nephilim females, Nemu! I don't have time for this riff-raff." Uryuu's blood ran cold as he got a good look at those eyes - yellow and slitted, definitely the eyes of a demon. But how...? He still couldn't feel anything!

No, that was wrong. He did feel something. It was a creeping, gnawing, primal fear. Uryuu had faced demons before, certainly. But even in the absence of any demonic presence, the aura of sheer fear this creature emitted was enough to cause him to freeze in his tracks. Or perhaps it was simply a blank aura of nothing that Uryuu felt; it was like staring into the abyss - cold, void, and unyielding.

"Mayuri-sama," she replied softly with a bow of her head, "Ishida-san is quite unusual. I thought-"

"I did not ask you to think, Nemu," the white-faced man hissed, causing Uryuu's eyes to narrow behind his glasses. "The males are worthless to me." He didn't like where this was headed at all. The sting of betrayal from the schoolmate he was closest to had to be pushed down; whatever was going on here was something utterly frightening. Clearly this demon was some kind of researcher and this was his lab - or part of it. Putting the facts together, it seemed evident that Nemu had led him here to be part of it. He only hoped these two were the only ones.

Still, Nemu might have led him into some kind of trap, but he rankled at the turn their conversation was taking. That was to say nothing of whatever Nemu had been sent out to find; whatever Nephilim were, they couldn't be good. He had to be more concerned with his situation than his feelings right now.

"I'm sorry, Mayuri-sama." She hadn't raised her eyes since they'd entered the room, which somehow made Uryuu even angrier.

"Excuse me," he said, directing a glinting stare at the man he presumed to be Nemu's father. "I'd like to know why I've been brought here." He had a feeling it was pointless to ask Nemu in this demon's presence.

"Oh, come now, boy," Mayuri scoffed. "Such an entitled attitude! But I suppose there's no harm in telling you. You won't be leaving here anyway."

The white-faced demon rose from his spot at the workbench, revealing his oversized lab coat, and turned to face Uryuu and Nemu. As he did so, he flung a hand out behind him, gesturing to the row of glowing capsules lining the far wall. For the first time, Uryuu really focused on them. Through the haze, he could make out forms inside; a quick count told him there were twelve in all. The last chamber was empty.

Twelve girls...

"It was you!" Almost unbidden, the white bow of light materialized in Uryuu's hand. In a fraction of a second, it was aimed squarely at Mayuri's face. Mayuri looked distinctly unimpressed.

Nemu, on the other hand, shot into action. Immediately, she left Uryuu's side and stood to face him, arms outstretched and blocking his aim at her father. Although her expression had changed nearly imperceptibly, he could tell she was unhappy with him.

"Mayuri-sama, please be ca-"

Uryuu's eyes went wide as she was cut off mid-sentence by her father's hand. For such a gangly-looking man, he didn't lack for strength. The slap didn't just get Nemu's attention; it sent her flying sideways into a rack of supplies.

"Stupid girl!" Mayuri derided her casually. "No one told you to do that. Now, where was I?" If anything, the ease with which he knocked his daughter out of the way caused Uryuu to hate him even more. She might have been manipulating him, but Uryuu still didn't want to see her get hurt.

"You've been kidnapping human girls," Uryuu spat, "For what? Some kind of experiments?" Mayuri's look suggested he had judged the young man's intelligence and found it to be wanting.

"Human?" he scoffed, "Is that what you think they are? Oh no. They, and you too I see, are not quite human. Most demons would consider you an abomination, actually." To punctuate, he idly flicked a hand towards the burning white bow. Uryuu's patience was quickly wearing thin. Not human? Who was this monster to say something like that to him?!

"An abomination?!" Uryuu couldn't help his indignation. "We are the human race's last hope! We are-"

"Apparently deluding yourself," Mayuri finished for him. "I do not share their opinion, by the way. I find you all quite... fascinating. Something which has put my research at odds with, shall we say, certain legal codes. But tell me, boy. What kind of human can do that?" The demon waved with his delicately boned hand, flashing black nails as he did so.

"No, you are mostly human," he continued to scoff as he paced, yellow eyes never leaving the teenager before him. "But the cursed blood of the Nephilim flows through your veins as well, to be sure." Uryuu's curiosity won out over his hostility, although he did not lower his bow.

"What does that mean?" he asked warily. "What is a "Nephilim"?" Something in the demon's demeanor changed, causing him to crack a wide grin. It was as if he'd been waiting for just such a question, waiting for an excuse to burden someone else with his arcane understanding of a mysterious situation.

"The natural enemy of demonkind, of course!" he responded gleefully. "Well, I suppose you could put it that way. More accurately, you all are the offspring of those creatures, born of a human parent. Whereas you male children inherit a small bit of their heavenly firepower -" at this, Mayuri gestured at the bow again "- the females inherit a portion of the poisonous physiology that makes such creatures so fascinating."

Uryuu didn't want to believe him. Nothing good could come of listening to such a fiend. Quincy were human too, weren't they? But if that was true, then why did they produce such fantastic weapons from thin air?

On the other hand, he was aware that his grandfather possessed the same abilities, and that his father most likely did, even though he disapproved of using them. As far as he knew, they were even distantly related to the general who had rebelled against the demon aristocracy 400 years ago. Was it possible for these things to transcend time in such a way? Why was this left out of his grandfather's history lessons? Was he unaware, as well? Or...

"Then are you saying my grandfather...?" He lowered the bow, although his fingers never let the light arrow go slack. The demon he was addressing gave a condescending snort.

"Most likely not," he replied. "Those progenitors - let's call them Children of Heaven, for simplicity's sake - have not been seen regularly on Earth for hundreds of years. You, and these girls as well, are merely the distant descendants of such monsters." This statement didn't seem to hamper Mayuri in any way, though. On the contrary, he smiled brightly as he turned with a flourish to the wall lined with shining liquid-filled chambers.

"Even so, their DNA structure is remarkable!" he carried on. "Did you know that some of your physiology is similar to the common honeybee? And even then, your kind are able to reproduce with humans seamlessly! The male of your race is a simple warrior, equipped with the tools he needs to protect himself from our kind. The female, though-! Each of these girls possesses the power of a queen within her body!"

Uryuu was silent in morbid fascination. The demon before him was nearly dancing with joy, arms outstretched towards the walls of his laboratory, white coat flaring around as he spun. As far as he could tell, the demon thought he had unlocked the secrets of the universe. Whether he was correct or a madman was totally unclear. Whatever he'd discovered was certainly not common knowledge.

Another thought struck Uryuu then. There was no way Mayuri had stopped at research. If that was the case, he would have taken a sample and let these girls go. No, he had either done something to them, or used their bodies as the raw materials to do something else - probably something to other demons.

"Why keep them, then?" he demanded. "Why not let them go?" The white-faced demon let his yellow eyes slide back towards Uryuu, his demented grin faltering after a moment.

"Are you mad?" he sneered, his gleeful countenance making way for disdain. "They are far too valuable for that. Perhaps it's time to show you. Nemu!" Uryuu took a step back towards the hallway as his classmate stepped forward. She looked unhurt from getting flung into the shelves, and in any other circumstance, Uryuu would be grateful for that. But in this instance, it definitely meant a fight. It wasn't one he wanted to engage in.

"Nemu-san, I don't want to fight you." He blurted it out without thinking, and immediately flinched afterwards. Nemu's face remained impassive as she stepped towards Uryuu. He raised his bow again with shaking hands as her right hand crossed to the silver bracelet on her left wrist.

"I'm sorry, Ishida-san." It was said so quietly that Uryuu almost thought she'd mouthed it. As she unlatched her bracelet, the 'snap' reverberated throughout the room. It all happened almost in slow motion: the delicate silver chain twinkling away from her wrist, the billowing mist, the wave of power like a tiny nuclear explosion. Uryuu almost thought he might roast under the heat. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced before, even with Kurosaki and his friend. This was more than the power of a mere demon.

This was a monster.

In the distance, Uryuu could hear the mad scientist cackling.

"How do you like her, boy?!" His voice was reaching a fever pitch. "Did you think she was just a normal girl? Not my Nemu! She is my greatest creation!"

Like a bucket of ice water, the realization washed over Uryuu. He'd been using the Nephilim girls to experiment on Nemu. What would happen, though? Mixing human and demon blood was forbidden, and even his own grandfather had warned him of intermingling with their kind. How much worse would this be with the knowledge that none of those girls were actually fully human?

In short order, the answer came into view. She was still vaguely human-shaped, but now Nemu was covered in a shining black carapace. Her limbs had stretched almost into insect legs, right down to her fingers, and her face had fully transformed into that of a wasp. As if to confirm this relation, a pair of four translucent wings burst and unfurled from her back, shortly joined by an extra four arms, all tipped with sharp points. Underneath it all, there was a low, keening cry. It lanced Uryuu's head through the ears; even as he flinched, it pierced his heart, too. He cupped his hands over his ears and tried not to be driven to the ground.

If he failed here, Nemu would kill him. Worse yet, all those humans would be defenseless; her father would continue doing as he pleased. As he gritted his teeth, Uryuu realized the gravity of his situation here. He had to stop Nemu, preferably without killing her. But if he had to kill her...

No. Now was not the time. Instead, he sprang into action, rolling out of the way of her claws as she took her first swipe. She grazed his jacket, almost cutting the fabric. Dammit, he had sewn that jacket himself!

Uryuu's eyes clicked up to the monster above him. Any mortal fear he may have had before vanished; he refused to allow his clothes to be ruined, even by Nemu. In a move almost quicker than the eye, he fired a volley of arrows, nearly all of which hit their target. Those that missed also achieved their intended goal - the destruction of this accursed laboratory. Glass shattered and smoke poured out of the broken instruments, sparks and fumes filling the room. When Uryuu heard Mayuri's voice again, it was full of anger and distress, yelling at the devastation. Just to be sure, he fired off a few more arrows in that general direction, hoping to shatter some of the vials lining the walls.

He would bring this place down around their ears.

Running along the wall, Uryuu continued to strafe in Nemu's direction. The truth was that he hoped to bring one of the rows of shelves down on top of her, hopefully hitting her hard enough to revert her to normal. Part of him, though, was afraid that she might never be normal again - maybe she was never who he thought she was in the first place.

Those thoughts, again, could wait for another time. Even though she was a demon, Nemu was his friend, and by heaven, he would help her. Even if it was just to put her out of her misery.

Out of the corner of his eye, Uryuu spotted something that gave him an idea. The row of glowing chambers set along the wall had been somewhat disturbed by the fighting so far, what with the stray light arrows smashing everything around them. But with Nemu's claws chasing him, Uryuu realized that was all it would take to free those girls. Deftly, he paused right before one of the tanks for just a fraction of a second longer than he would have otherwise.

And his idea paid dividends immediately. Nemu's sharp fingers not only punctured the tank, causing the fluid inside to gush out, but also knocked the tank to the floor. Uryuu thought briefly that it smelled of fruit, but paid it no mind. No longer suspended in the liquid, the girl inside was jostled along with the canister as it fell.

Nemu shrieked, an angry, sharp noise, as she drew back. Whether that was from the glass that had made its way past her black exoskeleton or from the havoc Uryuu was causing to her father's lab, he wasn't quite sure. As she reared back to lash out again, he made sure to position himself right between the next two tanks. Sure enough, she smashed them as well, spilling their contents on the ground and roaring once more in frustration and pain.

Just as Uryuu was setting her up to break a fourth chamber, an angry, primal scream jerked his attention away. Nemu was hit with the force of a freight train as something resembling a giant baby's face attached to a caterpillar swept her off her feet. He watched in morbid fascination as they collided with the solid walls of the lab, bringing shelves of chemicals and powders down on them. From beyond that, her father was berating her.

"You clumsy oaf! What is this grandstanding?! I ordered you to kill this trash, and instead you destroy my laboratory!"

The tirade continued, almost oblivious to the Quincy standing just a few feet away. Uryuu gathered his breath and then ducked behind an overturned chair to check on one of the girls who'd been freed. She was wet and unresponsive, her body the same temperature as the room around her. As he touched her skin to shake her, he realized that not only was it slightly green, but it was also slimy. Although she was well-preserved, there was no pulse. Looking around at the others, it was the same. Either the fluid had kept them alive, or they were simply being stored. Either way, they were beyond help.

It was then that Uryuu made a decision. Standing and dusting himself clean, there was only one way to make this right. As he edged back through the door, Mayuri and his caterpillar monster were absorbed in berating Nemu. If he only strafed as much of the room as possible, there was a chance...

Uryuu stopped thinking and let his hands work on autopilot. He fired off masses of arrows, sliding back from the force. At least one of them would hit a gas line, or an explosive chemical, and this would all be over. Hopefully by the time he did, he'd be shielded from the blast in the next room.

"Licht Regen!"

When he finally struck what he was looking for, the explosion was phenomenal. Ducking into the doorway across the hall and shielding his face with his jacket - and secretly wishing he'd had one of his mantles onhand instead - Uryuu slid back from the force. The smell told him it wasn't a gas main that he'd hit, so that was fortunate; whatever it was still burned bright and hot.

After a few moments of stillness, he peeked around the corner. The laboratory was in shambles, small fires burning here and there. A viscous green slime painted the walls - he assumed it was from the caterpillar creature - and the walls were beginning to collapse. The tubes along the wall fell, one after the other, smashing into the rubble and depositing their cargo into the floor. The girls inside lay in heaps and puddles, unmoving.

Just as Uryuu took a step into the room to see if there were any survivors, a large pile of debris before him twitched. With that as his only warning, the pile swelled, then broke apart, a great shining winged creature emerging from it. Just barely audible over the cacophony around her, Nemu wailed. Uryuu's eyes bulged for a second as he gulped down a breath. Then he set his feet in the rubble and aimed his bow at her.

He needn't have worried. Nemu was totally still for several seconds before falling forward into the debris. As a cloud of dust and asbestos swirled around her, Uryuu found his heart rate returning to normal. As the adrenaline subsided, he realized that he should go to notify the human authorities. If nothing else, the girls' families could have closure now. It would be foolish of him to stick around until either of them came to, as well.

As he turned to take a step, though, Uryuu felt something like a small, solid chain crunch beneath his feet. Lifting a foot, he saw a twinkling silver chain right where he had just stepped.

Nemu's bracelet.

Uryuu sucked a breath in between his teeth. What should he do? Breaking it would doom Nemu to be a monster, at least until her father could rebuild enough to make her another one. Provided he was even still alive...

The bracelet sparkled innocently as he picked it up and looked at it with furrowed brow. Finally, his foot crunched the broken glass beneath as he turned back to the unconscious demon behind him. Bending down and taking one of her sharp, poisonous hands in his, Uryuu placed the chain around her wrist and fastened the clasp.

He didn't stay to see what happened after that. Instead, he nearly ran home, barely looking as his feet flew over the cracked pavement. He choked back tears of frustration as he ran, cursing his own weakness. He hadn't even properly avenged those girls; there was nothing to guarantee that Kurotsuchi Mayuri wouldn't start his whole operation over again in a different place.

His best simply wasn't good enough.


The next day, their homeroom class was as quiet as a tomb. Ichigo was out again, and Orihime was convalescing at an undisclosed location. Without those two around, Keigo was mostly quiet and Chizuru was left without her chief target. Even the new boy with the blond hair had gone missing shortly after transferring in. Uryuu easily contributed to the depressing situation, brooding at his desk as though under a heavy stormcloud.

He had failed. Failure was a foreign proposition to Ishida Uryuu, and not one that he was finding he enjoyed. Those girls had died, probably long before he even arrived. Although he knew that wasn't his fault, he still blamed himself. He couldn't even take comfort in having destroyed Mayuri's operation; if the demon was still alive, he'd be back at it again soon.

Then there was Nemu. Uryuu wanted to hate her for misleading him. Looking back on it, she had obviously been deceiving him from the start, probably in the mistaken belief that she was following her father's orders to collect Nephilim specimens. Even so, Uryuu found that he couldn't truly hate her. She was most likely just as much of a victim here as the other girls. And after a few moments reflection the night before, he realized an awful truth: Nemu had been the result of Mayuri's experiments on those girls. That was the only logical explanation for her grotesque transformation.

Ah, or maybe Uryuu just didn't want to blame her for what she'd done.

That was an uncomfortable thought. Since when had he been so soft? Demons were the enemy. That was his policy. But could he apply it to her? Suddenly the world wasn't quite as black and white as it had been, and that was tying Uryuu's stomach in knots. She had snuck past his defenses and compromised his emotions without him even noticing.

As he huffed a frustrated sigh, Uryuu bowed his head towards his folded hands on his desk. His eyes squeezed shut for a few moments before he heard a small shuffle and felt a folded square of notebook paper brush his arm. He opened his eyes and reached for it; the note only had two words written in tidy, perfect pencil.

'Thank you'.

Uryuu's head snapped up, eyes zipping right to the seat beside him. There he saw a familiar pair of bright green eyes, lidded and downcast, looking at the hands folded neatly on her desk. She didn't meet his gaze, but he could see yesterday's injuries; a brace on the wrist opposite the one with her limiter and bandages on her cheek and legs.

Still, Uryuu's eyes softened. Without thinking, he found himself smiling.